In the fertile river valley along the border of modern-day India and Pakistan, the Indus Valley Civilization built some of the largest cities in the ancient world.
In the fertile river valley along the border of modern-day India and Pakistan, the Indus Valley Civilization built some of the largest cities in the ancient world. Feeding such a large population would have been a significant challenge. But new research from the University of Toronto’s Kalyan Sekhar Chakraborty reveals one of the ways the civilization was able to sustain so many people: dairy production.
A post-doctoral researcher at U of T Mississauga, Chakraborty found that dairy was being produced as far back as 2500 BCE. It is the earliest known dairy production in India and could have helped produce the type of food surplus needed for trade.
Chakraborty used molecular analysis techniques to study residues from ancient pottery and demonstrated that dairy fats were not only present, but relatively common. He studied 59 shards of pottery from Kotada Bhadli, a small site in the present-day Indian state of Gujarat. Twenty-two of them showed evidence of dairy lipids. It is the earliest known dairy production in India, and dates to the height of the Indus Valley Civilization.
The results of his work are published in Nature Scientific Reports.
Continue reading at University of Toronto.
Image via Amit Basu Photography.
